Tuesday, March 26, 2013

When Evans started informing me a couple months ago every time he wet his diaper I figured it might be time to bite the bullet and THINK about potty training. I mean, I'm not going to lie, I've sort of been dreading it. Just ask my husband, I am not a fan of public restrooms and the thought of having to constantly take a two year old into one just to make sure we avoid an accident is not all that appealing to me. I quite enjoy the convenience of having my child pee in his pants. That being said, I realize I can't exactly let this go on forever, not to mention the cost of diapers adds up. So with the looming threat of this upcoming government furlough, I decided that I would step it up a notch with Evans and just see what happened. It all started off well enough. When prompted, Evans used the potty with minimal fuss and actually seemed very proud of himself. He went days without having an accident (when we were home) and I really started to pat myself on the back for being such a parent extraordinaire. Then we started to slow decline into awfulness. It started with Evans resisting me taking him to the potty. Then it moved to him not wanting to wear the big boy pants at all and insisting on his "elmo pants" a.k.a. his diaper. Now just the mention of going to the potty can induce a full on meltdown. I backed off for a couple of days. He is only two and a half after all and let's face it, he barely learned to walk by 17 months. After a couple of days break we are back at it and things are not exactly going well.

I am pretty sure that we aren't getting anywhere.

And that my only child now hates me. So we are sort of at a stalemate. Deaner asks me every couple of days how the potty training is coming. Yesterday I suggested that he take Evans to the potty when he got home from work and I was slightly satisfied when Evans went wet noodle on him, making it impossible. The situation is not improved by the fact that tried and true bribery no longer seems to work. Do you want FOUR M&M's? NO. Do you want a new Lightening McQueen? NO. Do you want some money? NO. Y'all catch my drift.

I think maybe I should start looking into other ways to save money each month. It looks like we might be "elmo pantsing" it for awhile.

I truly thought we had turned the corner here in Germany. Around March every year I start to see the light at the end of the long gray tunnel that is the winter here. Sometimes looks can be deceiving I suppose. After a particularly mild weekend several weeks ago, Deaner and I were left walking on air in anticipation of spring time. The wine stand on the Rhein opened the barrel weeks ahead of schedule, we actually saw the sunshine and if you pay close attention, you will see that Evans was not even wearing his heavy ski jacket. Life was good.

And just like that, just when we were starting to feel the gloom lift, just when we could feel the life slowly returning to Germany, we woke up to this.

No warning or anything. Nothing in the forecast about a small March blizzard because apparently this is just NORMAL around here (though to be honest, we have lived here four years and I cannot ever recall it snowing in March).

No big deal. Just a couple inches. Or NINE. Deaner's office even closed in the middle of the day so that everyone could get home. A few days later we got another several inches without warning. Folks, this is the kind of snow that closes down Atlanta for days. And since I no longer live in Atlanta in a house with three awesome roommates to eat cheese puffs with and drink wine out of a box, I no longer find this all that amusing. I truly would have rather been watching an Alias marathon than building another snowman.

I think even Evans is over the snowman since he is pitching a fit that the snowman got to wear his "baby glasses". Deaner called me lazy for drawing the snowman's mouth with a sharpie marker. Sorry guys, I'm definitely over the snow building and sharpie was as good as it was going to get!

I suppose that no one ever died from a long winter and now that we are approaching April maybe we really will turn the corner. Until then I guess we have no other choice but to bundle up! Happy Monday!